


welcome, ghosts

by sevenfoxes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Fic, like... every AU imaginable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-21 22:11:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11953692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/pseuds/sevenfoxes
Summary: GoT tumblr fic.--1. gendry/sansa - a legitimized gendry is betrothed to sansaThe cloak of a stag that is placed over her shoulders is not put there by her blonde prince, but rather a dark-haired man who can barely meet her eye.2. rhaegar/lyanna - ned catches themA man looks at a woman like this for only one reason.3. robb/rhaenys - war marriageIt is nearly eight moons after the death of Ned Stark that Robb’s ship lands in Dorne.4. jon/sansa - mob auJon's been hunting again.5. jon/sansa - wwii-era westeros auAnd now the very last Stark will be taking the name Targaryen, too.





	1. gendry/sansa - a legitimized gendry is betrothed to sansa

At first, it had felt like a jape.

The tears had come quickly then, and though Sansa could tell by the look on her father’s face that she was breaking his heart, she could not bring herself much to care. Joffrey had been put to sword shortly before his mother and grandfather, cowering on the wooden stage in front of a braying crowd, and worse, made public the product of incest. His father, once his uncle, had died in the siege to save Sansa’s father.

Sansa has little love lost for Joffrey given how close her father had come to losing his own head before the Martells had interceded, how deep the betrayal of the Lannisters had been. Oberyn was given the right to execute the Mountain in exchange for Dorne supporting the legitimization of Gendry as a Baratheon and Robert’s oldest living son. Lady Tyrell’s backing had come with the promise of a marriage between her granddaughter and a legitimized Jon, brought back from the wall to inherit Casterly Rock now that the last of the Lannisters - only Myrcella, Tommen and Tyrion - had been exiled to the free cities.

But Stannis has grown restless to the south, and rumours begin to run rampant that he wishes to press his own claim for the throne. Though Sansa has not been privy to the discussion held in the council room, she knows what is whispered.

A King is only as secure as his lineage; in the shadow of war where men can fall, they must have issue. And Sansa is now betrothed to the Bastard King of Flea Bottom.

“Sweetling,” Ned says, scooping his daughter’s hands into his own, “you need not do this if it is truly not what you wish. He is a fine boy with a kind heart, I swear it to you. I would never allow you to marry a man not worthy of you.”

Joffrey had not been worthy of her. He had killed Lady, been cruel to her, tried to kill her kin. Septa Mordane had lost her head and Sansa had been throttled to the point of unconsciousness before the Martells stepped in. Sansa wants to go home, wants to feel her mother’s arms around her and the cool breeze on her face. This place is not what she was promised; no noble princes live in these walls.

But Starks do their duty.

So Sansa marries the new King of Westeros in a hurried affair in the Great Sept, not even enough time to allow for the great Houses not currently in residence to send their Lords and Ladies - not even her mother can make it to the Red Keep before her father hands Sansa to their new king. Her face is still blackened by the fist Joffrey ordered Clegane to put into it as the Dornish forces closed in on them, a terrible bruise over her cheekbone and matching marks of fingers over her throat that not even the best paste could cover. The cloak of a stag that is placed over her shoulders is not put there by her blonde prince, but rather a dark-haired man who can barely meet her eye.

“You look like a sour fish,” Arya says at the feast as the nobles of King’s Landing sink deeper into their cups. Sansa scowls at her sister, hoping her new husband doesn’t hear; the last thing Sansa wants to be is an ungrateful bride, but she longs for her mother in such an acute way, it feels as though her heart will break. "I don’t know why. This one’s nicer than stupid Joffrey.“ Arya sniffs. "Plus, he’s promised to make me another sword. Bigger than needle.”

“Don’t be silly,” Sansa hisses, eager to lash out. It bothers her that Arya has clearly spoken to and received kindness from the man who has spent the last hour carefully avoiding her eyes, barely a word spoken between them since her Father told her about her betrothal that lasted barely a fortnight. "The Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms doesn’t forge swords.“

Arya rolls her eyes, wandering off toward Father.

Later, the men leave her in her shift as they deposit her into the King’s chambers; Oberyn Martell had taken one look at her face and throat as the men pawed at her, his own eyes growing dark, and had nearly taken Lord Wuller’s scalp off for how hard he pulled him off her.

The ladies are as kind, pushing Gendry through the door after her in little more than his smallclothes. His face is nearly red, matching the tip of his ears, and it is the first time Sansa has truly had a chance to look at her husband. She knows little more than that he was a blacksmith’s apprentice, and when she looks upon him, she can see he’s built solidly, muscles bunched where most nobles seem soft. Arya had been right - he is handsome in his own way, his bared body making Sansa’s feel strange.

Her nerves flare when he finally meets her eyes, shifting toward the bed she is perched on. He sits slowly beside her hip, and though she expects for him to urge her down onto her back, he only stares thoughtfully at her.

When he does finally reach for her, she flinches, and the guilt that pours over his face is unmistakable. It’s only after that she realizes the hand was too high to be grasping at her, and when he follows through with the movement, it reaches up to cup her cheek. He runs his thumb over the bruise there tenderly. "I am sorry,” he says, his eyes trailing down to her throat.

Jeyne had always said that the Waters bastards were a special brand of craven, the Flea Bottom boys too used to brothels and loose women, but when Gendry leans in and kisses her gently, careful to avoid the bruising on her face, Sansa wonders if her friend had been wrong all along.


	2. rhaegar/lyanna - ned catches them

Ned first comes upon them in the long hallways of the western side of Harrenhal. Most of the keep is asleep, just a few of the Kingsguard roaming the halls. It is why Ned nearly trips over his own feet when he turns a corner and sees Prince Rhaegar in the distance, leaning against the stone wall, a young woman in front of him. It is no secret that Rhaegar’s marriage to Elia is a political match, but she’s said to be a fine and devoted lady, and has bore him a daughter. Anyone coming across this scene, watching the way Rhaegar leans forward, his violet eyes trained on the girl, would know exactly what Ned does. Would know his intentions.

A man looks at a woman like this for only one reason.

It is the height of dishonour - to his wife, his House, and the young woman he is currently speaking to - and Ned finds his dislike of the Targaryens growing by the second.

Then, the girl’s head turns ever so slightly, and Ned sucks in a breath when he recognizes the slope of a nose he’s known his entire life.

_Lyanna._

From his vantage point, they cannot see him as they chat quietly to one another, Lyanna’s hair rolling down her back in a dark cascade. It is when Rhaegar reaches out for an errant strand of it, as if to roll it around his finger, that Ned blurts out, “Your Grace.”

This time, Lyanna’s head swings around, the shock and guilt at being caught easy to read on her face. There is a light blush high on his sister’s cheeks, and Ned feels his hackles begin to rise. It takes a few moments to close the distance between them, and now, closer, he can feel the charge in the air.

“Ned,” she says softly, in the voice she uses to calm the ire of their father.

Prince Rhaegar nods toward Ned in quiet greeting, his eyes hard and calculating. “Thank you for gracing me with your lively conversation, Lady Lyanna. I would escort you back to your rooms, but I will leave that to your dutiful brother. Good evening.”

When Rhaegar passes him and disappears around the corner, Ned stares down at Lyanna. “What do you think you were doing?” he asks, trying to school his voice away from fear. “If anyone else had come upon you, it could have put your honour into question.”

“We were just _speaking_ ,” Lyanna says, her voice betraying her youth.

Ned grasps her gently by the arm, turning her to face him fully. “No one just speaks to the heir to the Iron Throne, Lyanna. He is a man grown - married at that - and you are betrothed to another. You should not be speaking to him alone at night in empty corridors.”

Lyanna shakes her head, wearing the same dejected look she gets every time Brandon and Father tell her to act more like a lady, that she cannot ride outside the keep as she wishes without guards. It is the first time she has ever worn this look at him, though. She’s always been more wildling than Northern, and the walls of Winterfell have kept her safe from her own impulsiveness; she does not understand the world of men the way that Ned does.

“Just be careful,” Ned says, reaching for the hair that Rhaegar tried to claim earlier. “You are my only sister.”

Then Rhaegar lays a wreath of winter roses upon her hair, and Harrenhal implodes. Their father sends Lyanna home to Winterfell in the middle of the night with Ned without the dismissal of the King. The Baratheons make little secret of their anger over the encroachment of the Prince on a woman they consider part of their House, and it takes Ned nearly the entire evening and the promise that he will personally escort Lyanna back to Winterfell to calm Robert.

They ride through the night and into the next day, stopping only briefly. Though Ned doesn’t tell Lyanna, they push their horses hard to ensure that once she is discovered missing, any riders that Rhaegar or the Targaryens send to retrieve her will be too far behind to catch them.

Lyanna gifts him with hours of silence and it is deep into the late afternoon when Ned finally snaps.

“What were you thinking?” he asks finally, breaking the unnatural quiet.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Lyanna argues, her face full of child-like fury. Although it had taken nearly a fortnight of cajoling to get Lyanna to attend the tourney at Harrenhal, little interest in _silly noble men playing at knights_ , she is livid to be torn from it so unceremoniously. Her anger had been easily eclipsed by their father’s, who had given Ned permission to drag Lyanna back to Winterfell by her hair if necessary.

“Rhaegar crowned you Queen of Love and Beauty in front of the entire Royal Court!” Ned hisses. “In front of his _wife_ and the King. In front of your betrothed! Lyanna, do you understand?”

“I didn’t ask him to!” Normally, her tones would be enough to have Ned cooing consolation at her; Lyanna has had years of practice bending her brothers to her will, and she almost always succeeds. This time though, Ned’s fear wins out. “I didn’t know he was going to do it!”

“But you wanted it. You don’t school your feelings near well enough. It was written all over your face.”

Lyanna’s mouth sours further; this is an argument she clearly knows she will not win. She is young, but smart. This is obstinance. “Is it so horrible to be wanted?”

“Robert is a good man,” Ned says roughly, trying to make his sister understand what she is toying with. Aerys is a mad King, and Ned has little faith that his son is not fruit from that seed. Robert’s always been prideful, and to set the two at odds is a fight that Ned truly fears, mostly for Lyanna’s sake, though she’d never believe him. “A friend. He is honourable and loves you. He does not deserve to have his feelings played with.”

Something inside Lyanna snaps at that, her face going red. “Why don’t _you_ marry him then, Ned?” Her fingers tighten on the reins as Ned prays the guards in the distance before and behind cannot hear her outburst. “I was never given a choice, just told at three and ten who I would spread my legs for-”

“Lyanna!”

Lyanna brings her horse to a halt. “You think Father will let you wed Ashara? There’s no gain for him. One day he’ll decide to trade you for an army, to fulfill a bargain.” Lyanna resents Robert more for being her father’s choice than for Robert himself; their father loves Lyanna, but none of them have ever loved her the way she needed them to. “Robert may think he loves me, but he wants to own me.”

“You think Rhaegar doesn’t?”

Oh, and how that has landed. For one of the first times in their lives, Lyanna looks upon him as though he has truly hurt her. “Mayhaps I _want_ him to own me. Mayhaps that’s the _difference_ , Ned.”

It is these words that Ned remembers when his sister disappears a year later. It is how he knows she has not been taken. It is why when Robert cries, _he has kidnapped her!_ Ned does not correct him. It is why when Lyanna hands Ned a quiet infant with bloody hands, the life slipping out of her as she begs Ned to protect him from Robert’s wrath, Ned begins a secret that he will carry with him to the grave.


	3. robb/rhaenys - war marriage

It is nearly eight moons after the death of Ned Stark that Robb’s ship lands in Dorne.

 _The Dornish are not like us,_ Mother had warned him after the raven had arrived bearing the agreement of Dorne to the terms of his betrothal with Rhaenys. _She has been living in the free cities for years, besides. She may not be used to our customs. Give her time and patience. It took me years to understand your father’s lands, and I was not entirely foreign to them._

The climate alone is enough to knock Robb near off his feet as they disembark. There had been no time before he left to fashion clothes suitable to the Dorne heat, and even his lightest layers make him feel like he is touched by the sun.

“Your Grace,” Oberyn Martell says to Robb as they meet on the dock, his head bowing in deference. “Welcome to Dorne. We are honoured to the King in the North come to our shores.”

Even though Robb has carried the title for more than half a year, it is strange to think himself a king. Back when he was a boy, Mother had often spoken of one day becoming Warden of the North, but this -- Father’s death, war with the South, Sansa held prisoner in the Red Keep, his other siblings lost -- feels like a burden too heavy to carry for one man. Robb manages a weak smile as he replies, “Thank you for your kind welcome.” 

Jon disembarks behind Robb, and both their eyes drift to the small party behind Oberyn.

The most beautiful woman Robb has ever seen stands to the left of a man with such Targaryen colouring that it leaves no doubt as to his identity. Aegon is roughly Robb’s age, but the thinness of his face makes him look much older. Although he has been graced with the silver hair and violet eyes of his father, it is a colouring that his sister has not inherited. 

“May I introduce you to Princess Rhaenys Targaryen,” Oberyn says, motioning for his niece to step forward. She simply nods her head instead, shifting closer to her brother. Rhaenys has inherited the dark looks of her Dornish family, but has the same thin, graceful build that her brother has.

Robb has never seen anyone so lovely, despite Rhaenys refusing to meet his eye, instead looking to her mother and brother. Although he had agreed to the marriage for strategic advantages, setting aside his father’s promise to the Freys, he knows that this was likely not a choice for Rhaenys as it was for him.

For her family, it is a bargain: Rhaenys’s hand for the North’s freedom under Targaryen rule. The North’s forces will join Dorne in putting Rhaegar’s line back on the Iron Throne, after which it will be granted its recognized independence by the restored Targaryen regent.

When Robb tears his eyes away from his betrothed, he finally notices the queer look on Elia’s face, her own eyes fixed on Jon beside him. They narrow as if in anger, but there is some unnamed emotion in it too that has the hair on the back of Robb’s neck rising in concern.

Jon, it seems, has also caught her strange stare, and he turns to Robb, exchanging a troubled look with his brother.

Elia jerks away from her children, stumbling as she turns and walks back down the dock.

“Mother,” Rhaenys calls after her, treating Robb to the first sound of her voice. It seems unbecoming to feel the warmth of attraction begin to swirl in his gut in the midst of such a strange scene, at the absurdity of a rushed marriage to serve to bind families in a war, but Robb finds he cannot help himself.

“Please excuse my sister, Your Grace,” Oberyn says, his eyes narrowed in concern as he watches one of the soldiers help guide an unsteady Elia back down the long dock, Aegon and Rhaenys’s faces painted with worry. “She has been unwell since her trip across the narrow sea.”

“No need for apologies,” Robb says with a thin smile.

\--

They say their vows in the Sept before a small congregation of Dornish nobles. Fixing the Stark cloak over Rhaenys’s shoulders, he hands off her black and red Targaryen cloak to Jon, who drapes it over his arm with care.

When Robb pulls back after the kiss, his cheeks warming as his new wife’s fingers dig into his wrist, his eyes track Elia’s, staring at Jon’s fingers as they trace the red dragon stitched into the cloak.

Thankfully, the customs of Dorne are different than the North. There is no raucous crowd to drag off the newlyweds and strip them. Halfway through their wedding feast, Rhaenys, who has been quiet and pleasant for most of the meal, excuses herself to retire.

By the time Robb makes it to their chambers, she is stripped down to a shift so thin it is nearly transparent in the candlelight.

He isn’t sure she still has her maidenhead, but when her features crumple into discomfort as he pushes into her, he knows she has come to her marriage bed a maid. Robb has bedded a number of women in his years, but he has never bedded a maid before. He thinks back to Theon’s words ( _slow and steady with the maids until you hear ‘em moaning_ ), and though the thought of his old friend makes his blood boil with anger, he translates his frustration into a gentleness with the girl underneath him that makes Rhaenys gasp with pleasure.

It takes him almost no time to spill, shaking and panting like a green boy instead of the king he is. Below him, Rhaneys’s finger trace his ribs in curiosity, her eyes slamming shut when he shifts his body to put his hand between her legs, rubbing her until he feels her shake with her own peak.

“You will like the North,” Robb tells her later as she lies spent and sweaty next to him. Her dark hair is damp, curling over her neck and breasts in beautiful swirls that he wishes to reach out and touch, but he isn’t sure if it would be welcome.

A husband is entitled to his wife by the laws of the land, but above all else, Robb is his father’s son. Eddard Stark never handled a woman in anger or with entitlement, always treated his lady wife with care and gentleness. It is that kind of marriage that Robb wants, no matter how he comes by it.

“I am sure I will,” Rhaenys says in a voice that entirely lacks conviction, the sort of speak that Robb used to listen to Sansa parrot back to their septa. It makes him think of Sansa, trapped with that rotten monster of a king in the Red Keep, how scared she must be. Of how worried Rhaenys must be, a girl torn from her home time after time and now traded to a land she’s never seen before.

When Robb reaches for Rhaenys’s fingers, they twitch in shock, her eyes widening ever so slightly in the dim light. “It’s cold, but the people there are warm. Kind.” He runs his thumb over her delicate knuckle. “I promise you that you will have nothing to fear within the walls of Winterfell.”

Robb had hoped that this would help soothe her mind, but in the following days, Rhaenys’s skittishness remains. She spends most of her days avoiding Robb in the small patterings of free time he has been strategy meetings with Oberyn, Doran, and Jon. The servants claim not to know where she is, but he can smell the lingering scent of her -- orange and heliotrope -- in the halls of the castle.

In bed, he does not press her to tell him where she runs off to. Things are too fragile between them to push, so instead he presses his face into the curve of her neck and breathes in the scent that haunts him during his waking hours.

Robb manages to track her down late one afternoon, the sun nearly unbearable as he attempts to duck between shady spots. She is in one of the hidden courtyards near the back of the castle, shrouded by trees and covered in the thick layer of sand that coats almost everything in Dorne.

There, his wife is swinging a delicate sword, following a strange dance that she seems confident in. As he watches the blade slice the air, he feels heat build in his gut. It shames him sometimes, the quickness with which he has fallen for a woman he is sure does not carry the same feeling for him. He wants her near constantly, thinking of her dark hair and soft skin when he should be concentrating on the maps with Oberyn.

He knows it is natural to want to bed your wife, but it has been unexpected. Sailing to Dorne, he had resigned himself to a political marriage, to years of learning one another to find the kind of true affection that lived between his parents. In all of Robb’s daydreaming, he had never expected her, nor to feel what he does so quickly for her.

“Don’t lift your shoulder when you cut to the left,” Robb says, stepping out from the shadows. “That’s why you lose control of the blade. Extend, then let your shoulder follow.”

“Oh!” Rhaenys cries with shock, dropping the sword as if she is a child caught misbehaving. She tugs at her skirt until the ends drop out of her belt, destroying her makeshift pants and restoring her dress.

“I apologize,” Robb says, bowing his head. “I didn’t meant to scare you.”

“No need. I didn’t realize you were looking for me.” When Rhaenys notices he is staring at her sword, covered in dust at her feet, she nods her chin down at it. “Obara is teaching me. I was practicing the forms.”

“I have never seen a princess wield a blade before.”

There is something dark in Rhaenys’s eyes. For the first time, Robb realizes just how much a stranger this girl is, despite his growing familiarity with her body. He knows enough of her history to know her life has not been easy, but something tells him she has known more hurt than kindness. “It is my experience that princesses are the ones who need to wield a blade most.”

He wants to know here. She may not have been the wife he was expecting, but he’s beginning to realize that she is the wife he wants.

“Spar with me,” Robb says, motioning toward her sword. Though his mother would likely box his ears if she saw her son raising a sword with his wife, he is simply adhering to her words of advice. He will learn her, give her patience and time.

“Your Grace?” Sweet confusion widens her eyes, and her fingers flex nervously.

“My name is Robb,” he corrects, pulling out his own sword. “I used to spar with my sister, Arya. You remind me of her a bit.” He smiles, watching Rhaenys lean down to pick up her sword, keeping her eyes on him. “She’d make me promise not to pull my strikes, but half the time she’d leave me bleeding as she was far quicker than I was regardless.”

( _Arya_. Sometimes he aches with how much he misses her. He’s sent more men than reasonable to search the held lands to find her.)

That provokes the edge of smile as she leans down to grip the handle of her sword, pulling it up from the sand.

“Will you pull your strikes with me, Robb?” she asks, an edge of impertinence that he thoroughly enjoys hearing out of her.

“Will you draw blood, sweetling?” he counters, drawing his sword up as he steps into a defensive stance.

By the time he finishes taking her through the motions, careful not to strike her blade heavy enough to cause her harm, the smile she graces him with - wide and full of a quiet joy he has never seen on her before - makes his chest tight.

\--

Quickly, their time in Dorne comes to an end. Rhaenys grows quieter and more nervous as their departure grows closer, despite the inroads Robb makes in earning her trust. The last night before they set sail, Rhaenys is the one to pull Robb between her thighs, making him whisper the repeated promises he’s made to her about Winterfell, about the snow she’s never seen or felt before.

While the soldiers ready Robb’s ships, he goes in search of Elia one last time. She’s been scarce since the wedding, keeping to her rooms and declining invitations for food or company.

Today, he finds her in the gardens, watching her daughter resting on the lip of the large fountain in the distance.

“I want you to know that I will always treat Rhaenys with kindness,” Robb says somberly as he sits beside Elia. “I wish to make her happy, and for our families to know peace together.”

“I know. That is why I agreed to this marriage,” Elia explains. “I knew one day I would have to send her off, and my only demand of Oberyn was that her husband be kind, for she has known too much pain at men’s hands. I only hope you are the man your father raised you to be.”

Robb’s throat grows sore; there are days he misses his father beyond all reason. “He was a good man. I hope to make him proud.”

“I never got a chance to thank him,” Elia says, her voice thick with sadness. “I owe him the lives of my children.”

“He would have accepted no thanks, your grace,” Robb says. It had only been after Ned’s death that Mother admitted Father’s role in the escape of the Martell princess and her children. Neither had whispered a word about what had happened Robb’s entire life, knowing that not even Robert would likely hold back taking Ned’s head if he knew that Ned had arranged for Elia, Aegon, and Rhaenys to be whisked to Essos under the cover of night, away from the wretched hands of Tywin and the Mountain. “Only honourless, cowardly men stand by and allow babes to be murdered.”

His father had viciously spoken of the travesty that was the death of Viserys and Daenerys with their mother. It had been the act that drove a wedge between the two former friends for so many years.

Elia nods. “Your brother,” she says carefully. “He is a good hand?”

“The best of men. I had to trade nearly seventy-five able-bodied men to the Wall to secure his freedom, but it has been worth every head.” Robb has felt more at peace with Jon beside him that he has in ages. “He takes after Father even more than I do.”

The eery likeness between Jon and their father has been a sore point for his mother, though Robb tries not to let it bother him.

Surprisingly, Elia does not agree with him the way others have been quick to. There’s something in her face that looks like doubt.

“I must admit, I did not believe the news at first. Ned Stark was never the kind of man to…” her voice drifts off, her thought unfinished.

Elia looks into the distance, staring at Jon who has taken a seat next to Rhaenys at the fountain. Jon has taken a shine to Rhaenys, who seems to be comfortable in his presence the way she isn’t with most outside of her closest family. When Jon lets out a hearty laugh at something Rhaenys has said, his head tipped down in mirth, Elia’s entire body seizes up.

“How old is he now?” Elia asks.

Robb’s hackles begin to rise.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka ELIA KNOWS WHAT HER HUSBAND'S KIDS LOOK LIKE, NORTHERN BLOOD OR NOT


	4. jon/sansa - mob au

The trail of blood starts at the bottom of the stairs.  
  
It's not the first time Sansa's seen blood on the white marble floors of her childhood home, but the last time, it had belonged to her family, the streaks leading into the living room where they'd staged a macabre scene with the headless bodies.    
  
This time as she climbs the stairs and follows the thick blots of it to the master bedroom, staining hardwood now, she knows that none of this blood belongs to a Stark.  
  
Jon's been hunting again.  
  
 _(I can't decide if that cousin of yours is more dragon or wolf_ , Petyr had said to her before he'd answered the knock on the door and sold her out to Ramsay Bolton.  _Dragons may burn everything down, but wolves... you like the taste of blood, don't you?)  
  
_ Once upon a time, the Stark name meant something.  Honour.  They drew blood when necessary, but they weren't cruel.  They ran a business - a family - on the belief that loyalty to your pack was paramount.  They didn't rule through fear like the Targaryens or double-deal like the Lannisters, and in the end, they paid for their honour.  No one escaped, not even the last two Starks.  
  
The girl that had flinched at the harsher side of their life - the bruises and the blood and the death - had died right alongside her family, stacked with their bodies left for her to find.  Ended by a Bolton knife and a sickness that had been festering long before she'd found her mother's severed hand resting on the piano in the living room, the same piano she'd sat with her mother at for years and learned to play on.   
  
Now, Sansa has a taste for blood, too.    
  
When she steps over the threshold, careful to avoid the splatter of blood with her bare feet, Jon's eyes meet hers in the mirror of the bathroom that used to belong to her parents.  Her mother's cracked jar of face cream is still sitting on the counter next to a pool of bloody water that Jon has splashed onto it.  They'd broken it when he'd fucked her up against the mirror a few days ago after she'd stitched closed the knife wound on his shoulder, the bruises on her neck still fresh and dark.  
  
Now there are long finger-shaped bruises on her thighs to match, on the left side of her hip where he had to hold her up to keep her from sliding off the counter.  
  
Jon was supposed to be the one who got away, too Targaryen for the Starks and too Stark for the Targaryens, the get of a blasphemous union between two powerful families at war.  A union that had gotten both of his parents killed.  Targaryens killed kin, but the Starks didn't, and Jon had grown up under Ned, but not part of the business like the other boys.  
  
Now, the blank-eyed man scrubbing out his wounds in front of her over the sink is the last of them.  Better at it, too, from what she's seen.    
  
"Is he dead?" Sansa asks, moving beside him and leaning her hip against the counter.  
  
Jon nods.  "He didn't go easy," he added, pulling a piece of glass out of his knuckle and letting it drop into the sink.  She can't see any wounds on his other than the cut-up state of his hands.  The blood in the hallway seems to be from his leather jacket, left discarded on the floor by the shower, and his boots, both soaked in the blood of their enemies.  
  
"Good."  
  
Lifting his hand to cup the side of her face, Jon leans in and kisses Sansa, messy and deep.  When he pulls away, his hand falling back to the sink, she feels the wet trail that his own blood has left behind on her cheek.  
  
 _(He's a wolf_ , Sansa had said as Ramsay's grin mocked her from the door, trying to keep the fear from her voice.  She wouldn't give him the satisfaction: not now, not ever.   _And we always take our pound of flesh.)_


	5. jon/sansa - wwii-era westeros au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for alittlestardustcaught's birthday. I don't even know what kind of AU this is. Just imagine like... Westeros with WWII-era warfare. Why? WHO KNOWS.
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Sansa is unsure of protocol, so she simply stands when Prince Jon enters the room. Everyone, it seems, is unsure of what to do when one King is overthrown by the last, even though Rhaegar had gone into exile so shortly after his father’s death that only those loyal to the Targaryens ever used the title for him.

Now, he rules the seven Kingdoms, and has appointed his youngest son as heir. The youngest son Sansa grew up believing her older half-brother. The youngest son that Rhaegar very unceremoniously told her was to be her husband in less than a sennight.

She barely recognizes the man they say killed Joffrey with a single blow on the battlefield. It’s been almost twelve years since she last saw her cousin, a skinny boy of fifteen who could barely grow a hair on his chin. The only part of the bearded man whose shoulders fill the doorway that reminds Sansa of that boy are the kind, grey eyes.

Stark eyes.

(It had only been after Jon had gone missing that Father had revealed the truth to Sansa and her siblings: Jon had not been a half-brother, but instead a cousin, the seed of the exiled King in the east and their dead aunt.)

Those Stark eyes shift between her and the men at the door wearily, their rifles held across their chests. Not even Sansa is naive enough to believe that they are here for her protection, and from the dark look on Jon’s face, it is something that he knows as well.

“Sansa,” he says cautiously, and gods, even his voice sounds different now. Rougher.

His face folds into shock when she dips into a low curtsey. “Your royal highness,” she says, folding her hands together demurely. This feels like armour; when she’d been suffering the worst at the hands of the Lannisters - of Joffrey - she’d slid behind the courtesies like they were her own weapons. She could believe that her thoughts, the vicious ones of slicing open Joffrey’s throat or watching Cersei be ripped apart by the hunt dogs, were treasonous acts committed against them in secret until her family could follow through on them.

But her family never came. Her family - every last one of them - is dead. The only Stark left is the one standing across from her, but now he wears a red dragon on his uniform and is called Targaryen.

And now the very last Stark will be taking the name Targaryen, too.

“Please, Sansa,” Jon says pleadingly, his fingers twitching to pull her out of the curtsey. “We are family.”

That’s the most perverse part of it, Sansa thinks. Before she understood the words bastard and adultery, she’d been so close to Jon, full of kind smiles and touches where Robb gave her endless grief and yanks on her pigtails. He’d been her favourite brother until she understood what having him under their roof meant to her mother, the dishonour he represented.

(And even then, once they’d been older, in that last year, there’d been something about him that intrigued her, even through her disdain. A fluttering she’d come to know was anything but familial.)

“You let us think you dead, Jon.”

He’d gone missing during a hunt with Robb and Father, the guards sent out with him found with cut throats. It had only been when the rumours had first landed about Rhaegar across the sea, amassing a large number of Dragon B-383 bombers, that the whispers about the second son of Rhaegar made it to Winterfell and King’s Landing. By then, they’d thought him dead nearly ten years.

“When I was first taken and put on the ship, I didn’t know who had taken me,” Jon said, looking shamed. “Even when he told me who he was, who my mother had been, I still tried to come back to you.” His eyes flit up to hers, piercing in their intensity. “That first year, I tried to come home more times than I can count. But he always caught me. One time, I made it so close that I could see Widow’s Watch before his ships caught up with me.” His swallow is loud, like he’s swallowing all the excuses he’s clearly desperate to give her. “I missed you all, but eventually I understood that staying with you would have put you all in danger.”

Sansa thinks of the last two years, the land scorched by war. “And yet danger found us anyway.”

It seems Jon does not have an answer for that, only a bereaved scowl, his eyes drawn to the elaborate gardens outside the windows of Sansa’s parlor room windows. It had taken nearly a week for Jon to make it down from Casterly Rock, even though the drive was only a few hours; the Lannisters had destroyed everything between in their retreat left landmines in their wake.

In the meantime, Rhaegar had Sansa moved to the Queen’s suite. She has no illusions that it is for her comfort; it is easily the most protected part of the palace, easily guarded with none of the passages that litter the rest of the sprawling castle. She is as much a prisoner as she was under the Lannisters, but in a far more gilded cage.

“Your hair,” he says, reaching out for the dark hair that still looks so foreign in the mirror, all the wrong she’s felt in the last two years suddenly physically manifested. Cersei’s ladies in waiting had nearly drowned Sansa, putting her head under the water to rinse it of the dye.

“They were trying to sneak us out the city to the Westerlands,” Sansa says. Rhaegar’s men had caught them as they hid amongst the townsfolk fleeing the walls, gunning down the last of the Lannister soldiers forcing Sansa toward the waiting truck outside the gates; the howls of the ladies as they were torn away from Sansa still haunt her dreams. “We didn’t get far.”

Jon nods, letting the strands slip through his fingers.

“Has Father told you his plan?” Jon asks, and it takes Sansa a moment to realize that Jon is not speaking of the one that raised him, but instead the one that had her brought to the throne room after he’d taken the palace to tell her of his grand designs for the boy whom he’d set aside his oldest son to crown as Prince and heir.

(Oh, and how Aegon had looked upon her with absolute fury when Rhaegar had laid out his plan. _A rebirth of his failed love affair_ , Aegon had whispered to her as she passed in the hallways. _Likely to end the same as the last. Let us see who you are married to in a year, princess._ )

“He has made it clear what my role is to be.” She tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but fails. The part of her that is singing at the freedom from the Lannisters, from the hands that have left her with a back full of scars and a head full of nightmares, is being drowned out by the chorus of voices that remind her that she is an orphan in a world full of sharks. Rhaegar wishes to use her body in the same way that Cersei had: to make the North - and its riches of oil - pledge allegiance to whatever heir comes from between her legs.

“I would never force you, Sansa,” Jon says. “I’ve already spoken to him. Eventually, he’ll see the wisdom in letting you return home.”

Sansa’s smile hurts. “Back to what?” she asks with a wet laugh. “They bombed Winterfell into nothingness. Joffrey made sure that I got to see the photos of the charred bodies, the rubble that used to be my home.” For all her naivety, the years in a foreign court have helped her learn more about politics than a battlefield has likely taught Jon. “They’ve destroyed the ruling house of the North. You think your father will give up annexing another kingdom with something as simple as a marriage?”

She bears no illusions; the only reason she hadn’t been killed in King’s Landing was because the Lannisters needed her marriage to tie them into the North that had declared independence, that had been bombed beyond all recognition. She is the last of its royal house, their short-lived king dead, and an easy way to legitimize a throne that is unpopular North of the Twins.

The breath that Sansa sucks in as Jon moves forward nearly chokes her. His hands on her face is too familiar, like taking a lungful of the North wind that smells like wood and snow. He tilts her head up, bringing her eyes to his. “I will take you back if that’s what you wish.”

When Rhaegar walks in the door and spots them, his silver hair pulled back from his face in the same style as Jon, Sansa does not like the smile that spreads across his face.


End file.
